1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an edge card connector and more specifically, to an edge card connector with signal pins and surrounding shields to reduce or eliminate crosstalk between adjacent signal pins.
2. Description of the Related Art
Known electrical connectors include electrical pins arranged in an array. The electrical pins are typically conductors that can transmit electrical signals (i.e., signal pins), that can be connected to ground (i.e., ground return pins), or that can transmit electrical power (i.e., power pins). Crosstalk between adjacent signal pins is a known problem that occurs in electrical connectors. Crosstalk between adjacent signal pins is increasingly difficult to reduce or prevent as the number of signal pins increases and the density of the signal pins increases (i.e., as the distance between adjacent signal pins decreases).
One known method to reduce crosstalk is to provide one or more ground return pins between the signal pins. The ground return pins enable the signal pins to be electrically isolated from one another. However, with this arrangement, the required number of signals pins in an electrical connector is greatly increased, which disadvantageously increases the size of the electrical connector and decreases the density of the signal pins.
Another known method to reduce crosstalk is to provide a shield around each of the signal pins. This is especially true for signal pins that transmit signals at radio frequency. Known implementations of this method include RF connectors such as SMA connectors and BNC connectors. However, these implementations are not used with edge card connectors.
Another known method to reduce crosstalk is to increase the distance between the signal pins, which decreases the density of the signal pins. However, this method also suffers from the problem of increasing the size of the electrical connector.
Thus, as the number of signal pins increases, there has been an increasing need for a connector design which prevents or minimizes crosstalk between adjacent signal pins while not substantially increasing the size of the electrical connector. If the size of the electrical connector is an edge card connector and if the size of the electrical connector must be increased, then the edge card that is to be inserted into the edge card connector must also be increased.